Tag: Outside voice

Issa Rae Offers Up Insights on Supporting and Amplifying Diverse Creators

June 23, 2023

Through initiatives like Frequency, our Creator Equity Fund, and Outside Voice, the Spotify Advertising program that spotlights rising BIPOC talents in the global creative community, we’re committed to giving underrepresented talent an opportunity to shine. 

And as part of our Spotify Beach lineup at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, we invited Joe Hadley, Spotify’s Global Head of Artist Partnership; Tye Comer, Spotify’s Senior Creative Production Manager and Founder of Outside Voice; and Erin Styles, Spotify’s Global Head of Advertising Business Communications, to host a conversation with three industry leaders who are building culture-shaping programs that support and amplify diverse voices. Tina Mahal, SVP of Marketing at Frito-Lay; Rania Robinson, President of Women in Advertising and Communications, Leadership (WACL); and Issa Rae, award-winning writer, actress, director, producer, and creative executive who is the mastermind behind hit shows like Insecure and Rap Sh!t, all took to the stage.

Ty Comer and Rania Robinson

Tye Comer and Rania Robinson

Our three guests shared not only their personal and professional journeys, but actionable insights as well. Here are five key ways for brands to use their platforms to authentically promote and connect with underrepresented communities.

Do more than seek out opportunities—build relationships

When asked how she aligns her personal values with the brands she works with, Issa revealed that she’s less interested in the size of a potential paycheck, and more interested in building valuable, long-term relationships. 

“I like to be transparent and ask brands what they hope to get out of a potential partnership, because I don’t wanna waste anybody’s time,” she said. “I want people to find value in collaborating with me and my media company, Hoorae. I want to have long-term relationships with the brands and not one-off situations that fall by the wayside. I remember I did a partnership with a brand, we worked together well, and I really liked what they did. But it was only for one big campaign, and I felt like it should have been a longer partnership.”

Issa also shared that she looks for partnerships that not only fit seamlessly into her personal and professional life, but also elevate the rest of her team at Hoorae Media and the creators they represent. This is what inspired the company’s decision to expand into talent representation with its management arm, Creative Color. 

“I would get so many opportunities that I didn’t feel like were the right fit for me, but I knew other up-and-coming creators and artists that could benefit from those,” she said. “And so I’ve been able to just kind of curate my own experiences and help curate the experiences of others.”

Tina Mahal

Double down on ideas that have momentum

Tina remembers that the marketing and advertising efforts of brands made her feel invisible when she was growing up. Now a SVP at Frito-Lay, she’s committed to building programs and creating campaigns that speak to the diverse individuals and communities who buy their products. And last year, Tina and Frito-Lay made headlines by replacing the company’s Cracker Jack mascot with Cracker Jill to promote women’s impact on sports.

Her advice? When you land on the right idea, accelerate.

“One thing I learned over the past year or so is, when you start to feel that excitement and that momentum behind an idea, there’s something there,” Tina shared. “And I would say that if you start to feel that momentum, double down on it. Make it massive. That’s what we did with Cracker Jill. It’s a 127-year-old brand, and we probably haven’t talked about it in a hundred years. We felt that momentum and we knew we needed to go big on it.”

Look beyond the numbers

In her role as WACL President, Rania is committed to getting more women in the professional world into positions of power. But while data suggests that progress is being made, she is wary of using stats as the lone indicator and believes there is still plenty of work left to do.

“The danger is that we are being fed figures that, on the surface, demonstrate huge amounts of progress,” she said. “When you actually unpack that data, you realize that women might be in the C-suite, but they’re not in the positions where they’ve really got the strongest level of influence. So what we are really campaigning for in our 100th year is to get equal representation in the CEO position. Because that’s where people can affect the most change.”

Rania went on to explain that having underrepresented voices in the top job not only provides a tangible shift in equality for women, but for marginalized groups as well.

Expand the scope of representation

While representation is often discussed with regard to public-facing efforts, Issa took a moment to discuss why representation is just as important behind the scenes, pointing out those less-suspecting moments where a lack of diversity is clearly felt. 

Issa Rae

“Even with aspects like hair, makeup, or lighting, you’re just like, they can’t find anybody because they didn’t do it in the way that it could be done,” she said.

This is why, according to Issa, Hoorae has taken intentional steps to make sure representation exists across the entire company. 

“There are so many Black experiences—diasporic experiences—and I want to make sure that we reflect that within the company, because that’s just gonna open up fresh ideas and creativity,” Issa said. “I think back to staffing the writers’ room for Insecure, and I had an incredible showrunner in Prentice Penny. He pointed out that it would be easy to get a bunch of people who think like me, but that we already had me. I’m one person with one perspective.” 

Rania also shared a similar sentiment during the talk, expressing that representation isn’t one-dimensional.

“Proportional representation matters. It shouldn’t be just a certain type of woman that’s in those positions,” she said.

Be authentic

This is a refrain often heard in the marketing and advertising worlds, but it carries no less weight as a result. Over the course of the conversation, all three of our featured guests referenced the importance of authenticity when it comes to diversity efforts.

“Authenticity is key. It’s gotta fit with what you’re trying to do with your brand and your message,” Tina imparted to the crowd. “Trying to be a symbol for the sake of being a symbol is not a great approach. When no one really wants to talk about your efforts and they don’t wanna do anything with it, then it’s a symbol. You don’t actually have something authentic that can grow to something bigger.”

Issa also discussed the importance of authenticity in movies and TV, referencing the fact that fans can always notice when a creator is faking it.

“If you’re making something that is supposed to be authentically Black and people are like ‘No, this is not it,’ you can identify when there are no Black team members,” she said. “When you’re watching or listening to something that reflects an actual experience from a person of color, or a perspective that mirrors your own, you can feel it.”

“I’ll never forget watching a movie get dragged because of set design. It’s a nightmare when people are like, ‘Oh, a character would never have that poster in their room…that doesn’t make sense…nobody Black worked on this.’” 

And in discussing the recipe for success when it comes to brand diversity initiatives, Rania also expressed the need for genuine efforts that touch every part of an organization.

“I think there are lots of people working towards diversity and equality, but you’ve gotta do it at the root of your organization,” she said. “People are doing things at quite a superficial level, and it’s not really gonna deliver that change in a way that’s gonna be kind of foundational, sustainable, and meaningful.”

Visit our Spotify Beach website to learn more about the week’s events in Cannes, and catch the latest on-the-ground dispatches from our team on the For the Record podcast.

Documentary Filmmaker Mike Shum and the Stories Behind the Songs

May 27, 2021

Earlier this week, Spotify Advertising debuted the second season of its annotated audio series, Outside Voice. In this series, rising Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) stars in the creative advertising industry will curate original playlists that feature their favorite music alongside spoken-word annotations, providing each creator a platform to tell personal stories, discuss their creative passion, and speak to important social issues affecting underrepresented communities. On Monday, we heard from Nwaka Onwusa, the Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Today, we’re sharing insights from documentary filmmaker Mike Shum. 

Mike Shum is an Asian American Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker whose work also directly reflects the present moment. His latest creations have centered on people in the U.S. living through the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests in Minneapolis following George Floyd’s death. In his annotated playlist, he states that he’s inspired by real-life stories that are “stranger than fiction” that can create awe and wonder on their own. His projects are made with empathy in mind, and he aims to break down silos for different viewers “if only for 50 minutes.” 

For the Record sat down with Mike for a conversation about his musical influences, BIPOC solidarity, and Beyoncé. 

In your playlist liners, you talk a bit about introspection—what’s a song on this playlist that helps ground you in the sensitive and heartbreaking topics you’ve covered?

Work and compositions that take me away from context actually help me better focus my energies and engage in work. The track—the score, really—that’s helping, strangely, is Ryuichi Sakamoto’s The Revenant. I recently learned more about his work and the period of time when he was composing this, and he was in the middle of radiation for lung cancer. Obviously the film had a big presence, but just reading more about him and watching a documentary about his process and how difficult it was, physically and emotionally, helped me remove myself from some of the most emotional pieces in my work. 

What is the song you listen to when you need to disconnect from work? The opposite of “focus and home in.”

I don’t think of it in those terms, but I do remember being fascinated and intrigued and fell in love with the glam rock era. I’m so inspired by the sheer boldness, the “F you, I’m going to do what I want.” The Bowie, Stooges, Iggy Pop era of music—the idea that who I am is to not care, and I just want to let you know that I’m here. So the track that stuck in my brain was “Lust For Life,” listening to work like that and thinking there was a wealth of powerful, challenging work out there, and that was fun. 

There are few Asian American musical artists in the mainstream in the U.S. How does solidarity with other BIPOC communities also manifest in music sharing and listening?

I’m a product of my generation and the community I grew up in, which was predominantly African American, in a pretty white area (Denver, Colorado). So as I gather songs that have spoken to me over time, it’s difficult for me to place where they’ve connected. I agree that there is a frustratingly small population of Asian American artists, which speaks in large part to where the most intense outspoken conflicts are. But it’s hard to hear work that speaks to the structures that impose their will on large groups of people and not find empathy and sympathy there. I think I’m naturally inclined to this music because I can feel it. 

There are some commonalities and shared feelings when it comes to BIPOC communities, and also LBGTQ communities—anyone who has to worry about a side of themselves because of who they are. When there’s music and art that really speaks to that, anyone who is marginalized can really grasp that and catch on really quickly. They can feel the texture a little more deeply. 

In your liners, you speak about the time between graduating from college and becoming a filmmaker. What’s something from this playlist that describes that time?

I was on a boat ride to Tripoli during the Arab Spring and in touch with CNN trying to figure out what to wrestle with during this very unpredictable season. And I downloaded The Chronic, but the instrumental version. The album had been a very big part of my upbringing, but in college I listened to a few tracks and didn’t feel great about some of the lyrics. Someone had recommended the whole instrumental album to me, and it was this huge fusion of the past and walking into the present moment of work. 

There are very specific reasons why I love that album. It’s a perfect album. André Young (Dr. Dre) was doing something really powerful back then. Lyrics aside—the ways he was compiling sounds and beats and his rhythm, it’s just so freaking good. I still listen to it to this day; that work kind of stretched across my life at many stages.

You and your Outside Voice counterpart Nwaka both have Beyoncé on your playlists. You reference how her song “All Night” has helped you in the moment. Can you reflect on Beyoncé as a cultural connector?

Expression is so important to me. I just love it. When I hear in a poem, when I see in a film, when someone is expressing parts of themselves but doesn’t use words and uses some other way to express that, I really feel it. I don’t really listen to a ton of Beyoncé, if I’m being honest. But at one point my partner told me to watch the videos Beyoncé made as a part of Lemonade, maybe three or four years after it came out. When I watched it, I just remember feeling it. I was thinking “where is this coming from?” You could feel everything she was going through. And that takes guts, that takes real f^&*ing guts because it’s vulnerable and it’s powerful and it’s hard. And that’s the power of good work—it ripples and it rinds into everyone’s lives. It moved me so quickly, it was so sharp and incisive. It’s something I can hold onto in the most emotionally fraught situations. 

Get to know Mike’s musical taste even further through his Outside Voice playlist below.

Nwaka Onwusa Channels Her Genre-Rich Musical Upbringing as Chief Curator at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

May 24, 2021

2020 was a cultural wake-up call for many, and brands, organizations, and institutions are now heeding the need for change. The global creative advertising industry is one such space, with an underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) perspectives—something that Spotify Advertising is looking to examine and change with the second season of its annotated audio series, Outside Voice. 

Each month, rising stars in the industry will curate original playlists that feature their favorite music alongside spoken-word annotations, providing each creator a platform to tell personal stories, discuss their creative passions, and speak to important social issues affecting underrepresented communities. Season two is opening up with two individuals, documentary filmmaker Mike Shum, and Nwaka Onwusa, the Chief Curator and Vice President of Curatorial Affairs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

Nwaka, the first Black woman to hold her position, pulls from a personal background rich in music from across genres, cultures, and styles—as well as her experience as an African American woman living and working in the U.S. In her annotated playlist, Onwusa champions the power of music as a force for social change and progress—for everyone. “I love the term “BIPOC” because it’s a blend of who we are as a society, whether we realize it or not,” says Nwaka. “We’re made up of so many different things, so many different experiences. Similarly, the music that is most impactful can’t be defined by one genre.”

For the Record caught time with Nwaka to learn more about some of the thought-provoking and influential songs on her playlist, as well as ask her advice for institutions looking to incorporate the history, legacy, and impact of Black Americans.

In your liners, you say, “We have to [fight for justice] as a collective.” What’s a song from your playlist that speaks to this?

Sweet Honey In The Rock, “Ella’s Song.” That song is a summation of what we need to do as a society in pulling together and uniting—to truly be the change. That song was shared with me personally by 2Pac’s aunt, and it happened to be one of Afeni Shakur’s favorite songs as well. “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.” That’s the opening line. It’s my get-up song. Another song that exemplifies that is Bob Marley’s “High Tide Or Low Tide.” However you listen to the lyrics, the spirit of that song—“high tide or low tide, I’m going to be your friend”—shows that everyone is needed. And then of course I have The Beatles’ “Come Together.”

What song makes you feel your power to make change?

The Carters, “Nice.” When they came out with that album, I just cried and cried. That song tells me to re-embrace, reconnect with the power that’s within myself, and not to be ashamed of that. And to truly harness it. When they were on tour, I remember screaming this anthem at the top of my lungs. In a time when I was definitely feeling pushed down and undervalued in my work space, being the only African American, taking the strength to like wake up and be strong every f&*$ing day—you know, it weighs on you—so to have such a bold song like that is really special.

No one person should bear the responsibility of educating allies on injustice. But if you had to pick an artist to speak for you, who would it be? 

Nina Simone. Homegirl puts it so plainly. I have “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” on the playlist, but there is no louder voice or ally I want to have than Nina Simone. She’ll sum it up. 

How are you and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame grappling with the legacies of Black musicians and genres that didn’t get their due? Do you have a piece of advice for museums and other institutions who need to do a better job incorporating that reality and history?  

We’re all working collectively to help redefine what rock and roll is and to help folks understand that when we’re talking about rock and roll, we are not talking about a specific sound. Rock and roll came on as a cultural phenomenon—it was the sway in Little Richard’s hips, in Chuck Berry’s hips, in Elvis’s hips. You don’t get to talk about “the rock” without talking about “the roll”—everything else is encompassed in that roll part! That’s the gospel, the country, the jazz, the bluegrass; that’s how you get to hip-hop. Rock and roll is the spirit. We are talking about counterculture as a phenomenon, not as a genre construct. 

What I would say to other institutions: What better time than this to start afresh and look at your collection, look at your audience with new eyes. We can’t be doing the same thing. We have a new generation looking to be educated and inspired, and that’s who we need to be creating for.

One of your Outside Voice counterparts, Mike Shum, has a few concertos and orchestral songs on his playlist. Do these pieces do it for you? 

I resonate with classical music because I used to play violin. Classical music is definitely another piece of who I am. So for me, you’ll see Dorothy Ashbee on my playlist—she was a Black harpist. She turned that classical Euro-Harping into Afro-Harping, which is the name of her album. There are a number of ways we can start to incorporate classical in the day-to-day, and I love how his playlist kicks off with “In the Mood For Love.” So dope! I never heard this song before, nor the composer or artist. I think as music lovers and listeners and people who dig deep into music, soundtracks are the best places to find unique music. 

How can we start to incorporate some classical or traditional music from non-white composers into our repertoire? 

We do need to continue to challenge ourselves. That is a level of diversity we need to explore. I’m grateful I had it by playing violin, from second grade through high school. I do also lean into some of the African American composers who don’t get a lot of light, including jazz musicians like Wes Montgomery and Eric Dolpy. To the point of non-white composers, whether they’re Asian, Indian, American Indian, or Hispanic, Latinx, African, we have to embrace it, so I love that both of our playlists parallel and celebrate these.

Get to know Nwaka’s musical taste even further through her Outside Voice playlist below.